Sisters women thrive on improvisational theater

Lisa Fetrow and Carolyn Platt dash to the front of the stage at Angeline's Bakery and Café. Soon they're singing: "Piggy, piggy, oink, oink, snort!" Then they're dancing.

They are improvising a bacon commercial, and their audience roars with laughter.

The two Sisters women are members of the Bend improvisational comedy group, Triage. (Improv comedy is the art of making up scenes based on audience suggestions.) The group performed at Angeline's this month and is slated for more fun at 2nd Street Theater in Bend this Friday, and again August 7.

Tickets for both shows are $5 and can be purchased at the door, which opens at 7 p.m. The shows begin at 7:30 p.m.

The longtime friends both have a love for the theater, Broadway and improv comedy. Platt, who is beginning her fifth year as a drama and art teacher at Sisters Middle School (SMS), first took an improv class more than five years ago. She was asked to teach drama at Cascade Middle School and thought the comedy form would help with her instruction.

She knew right away she couldn't keep this newfound technique from Fetrow and invited her to join the next round of classes.

"Carolyn pulled me in," Fetrow said recently while spending an evening listening to people sing karaoke to Broadway hits in Bend. "I love to perform."

Fetrow has always been interested in stage work. She was active in plays during her high school years in Tillamook, but usually helped backstage or played minor roles such as a townsperson. After moving to Sisters in 1983, she joined the Sisters Community Theater and in the mid- to late-'90s helped direct and co-direct plays at Sisters High School.

"I still wasn't ready to go on stage," she admits.

She helped with props, lighting, directing and costumes. When the community theater group performed "Our Town," Fetrow played the role of the town busybody. She hasn't looked back and is on stage now more than ever.

Fetrow recently performed the role of one of the daughters in the local musical, "Quilters," and can be seen and heard performing with Around the Bend Players (ATB Players), a troupe that performs old-time radio shows and includes Sisters resident Jim Hammond. Their next show is September 10 at the Old Stone Church in Bend.

"Therapy" is how Platt and Fetrow describe their involvement with improv and theater. "Now, I'm addicted," said Platt, adding that she wouldn't give up the comedy even if she was no longer a drama teacher.

Their fellow comedians have come to rely on them.

"Carolyn and Lisa have been integral to this team for over five years," Triage director, Rhonda Ealy, said. "Carolyn is the kind of player that comes to a show after a day of teaching middle schoolers and channels a motorcycle mama with gusto. She is game to whatever the audience or fellow improvisers ask of her. The commitment of the whole group is amazing. Most of us would only eat, sleep and do improv, if we could."

Mike Ficher, who performs with Fetrow in Triage and ATB Players, says, "Lisa is creative, supportive and a great improviser. Her ability to add in a scene really enhances the enjoyment for the audience and makes bits easier to execute for her fellow players."

The crowd that watched Triage perform recently at Angeline's seemed to agree. When Ealy asked the audience to call back characters they wanted to see again, there was a quick shout for "bacon commercial!" Fetrow and Platt smiled at each other, ran to the stage, and launched into song again: "Piggy, piggy, piggy."